At least 200 dead as army moves into illegal mines

Scrabbling for gems: Zimbabweans dig with their hands and shovels for rough diamonds

A BRUTAL government crackdown on diamond hunters in Zimbabwe involving soldiers and police has led to more than 200 deaths in recent weeks.

About 30,000 would-be miners descended on the lucrative Chiadzwa fields, 65 miles south of the eastern city of Mutare, two years ago after the government cancelled the owner's mining contract. While some used heavy machinery, others dug with shovels to expose the rough diamonds - all desperate to overcome the suffering caused by the country's economic collapse.

Then, in November, president Robert Mugabe's government sent in the army and police to halt the free-for-all in operation "Operation Hakudzokwi", meaning "you won't come back". Some of the prospectors were fired on from military helicopters.

Anyone with foreign currency was arrested on suspicion of dealing and cars, phones and other expensive possessions were confiscated unless the person could explain their wealth.

Main roads to and from the area are now guarded by military roadblocks with foreigners or those without adequate identification barred from entry. Anyone caught near the diamond fields without permission risks a beating or even death.

Inside the zone, only senior soldiers with the rank of captain or above are allowed to give orders. People in the area claim some in the military have set up underground syndicates with the backing of senior politicians from Mr Mugabe's Zanu-PF party to sell diamonds on the black market.

Many of the rough diamonds are smuggled across the nearby, porous border to Mozambique, where dealers from Lebanon, Belgium, Iraq, Mauritania and the Balkans are waiting to buy.

Human rights campaigners say that up to 200 people have been killed since the crackdown. They include Maxwell Mabota, 33, who was badly beaten in Nyanyadzi. He died of multiple organ failure in a South African hospital.

His widow Hanna was too upset to talk about the death of her husband. However, a family friend, who was prepared to talk on condition of anonymity, said: "He was very badly beaten by the soldiers and we know the name of the commanding officer, Brigadier Sigauke.

"They beat him with iron bars, fists, boots until he collapsed. He was taken by a police officer to Mutare central police station and they called his wife to get him. He was unconscious. He'd been badly beaten and his kidney had dropped outside his body. He had a bleeding nose, his buttocks were injured and his arms and legs badly bruised

"They took him to Mutare hospital but there are few drugs there and the doctors said they could not do anything so his brother flew him to a private hospital in Johannesburg. He had serious internal bleeding and died of organ failure without his wife there." The Chiadzwa fields, stretching for 15 miles, used to be managed by the diamond firm De Beers. After Zimbabwe's independence in 1980, De Beers sold the fields to a British company, African Consolidated Resources, but the government confiscated the asset in 2006, handing it to the state-owned Zimbabwe Mining Development Corporation.

That company failed to exploit the fields, prompting the invasion by the thousands of prospectors and the rise of diamond dealers such as Mr Mabota.

As well as his life, the soldiers took US$11,000, his car and two mobile phones which the family wants back. Mr Mabota and his wife had seven children in their care. The family first claimed Mr Mabota had been in the area to buy cattle to slaughter but now accept the transport operator, like many others, was in Mutare to cash in on the unofficial diamond trade, which could be worth up to US$1.2billion a month.

Zimbabwe is a signatory to the Kimberley Process, a 2003 agreement by diamond-producing countries to prevent stones mined in "conflict" areas from entering the mainstream market. The pact - highlighted in the Leonardo diCaprio film Blood Diamond - aims to restrict illegal trade from countries such as the Democratic Republic of Congo or Sierra Leone.

EU foreign ministers in Brussels have agreed a draft document urging the Kimberley Process "to take action with a view to ensure Zimbabwe's compliance", a reference to the ongoing violence around Chiadzwa. That move was welcomed by pressure group Fatal Transactions, which campaigns for the better governance of raw materials in conflict areas. "People are being tortured and killed in Zimbabwe and there are widespread human rights abuses so we think it should be kicked out of the KP," said Anneke Galama, international co-ordinator.

"It is difficult because the government of a sovereign nation is the one perpetuating the violence so they'd have to acknowledge doing wrong. We're engaged in dialogue on this, but we realise it will be hard to do, especially because Namibia is the next chair when it meets in June."